The Institute of Energy Security, IES, says fuel prices will be marginally stable for the second pricing window for July 2020 across various pumps in the country.
According to them, the stability of the cedi against major currencies and a rise in the prices of Gasoline and Gasoil on the international market, will be the main factors for the marginal increase.
A litre of petrol or diesel is currently pegged at 4 Ghana Cedis, 82 pesewas.
In an interview with Citi Business News, Executive Director of IES, Nana Amoasi VII (the 7th), said competition between Oil Marketing Companies to control and gain more market share and mounting pressure on government to reduce fuel prices may result in prices remaining largely stable in the second Pricing-window for July.
“The price of Crude oil over the last two weeks went up by about 3.7%. It was close to same margin; 5.5% increase for both petrol and diesel on the world market. We all understand that these variables are very key on what happens on the local market. We also saw the cedi appreciate marginally, but that is not enough to see the price on the local market stay same because of increases of prices on international fuel and oil price.”
He however added that, prices are likely to go up again due to the increases BDCs place on their prices before selling to the OMCs.
“There is a likelihood that OMCs will increase their prices because the importers in the BDCs will increase their prices for the OMCs and they will pass it on to the ordinary consumer” he explained.
Global performance
Per IES findings, Brent crude price increased by 3.68% from $41.08 per barrel recorded at the end of the second Pricing-window of June to close at $42.59 per barrel on average terms, at end of the first Pricing-window of July.
Average Gasoline price gained 5.59% to close at $390.73 per metric tonne, from a previous average of $370.05 per metric tonne.
Gasoil appreciated by 5.31% to close trading at $361.80 per metric tonne, from a previous average of $343.57 per metric tonne.